Supergrass Life on Other Planets (Parlophone)

"He's so stoned, doesn't even know what he's on about," murmurs Gaz Coombes of Supergrass on the spaced-out ending of "Evening of the Day," as the rest of the band plays congas and indulges in some off-key whistling. "Maybe he should go and lay down." It's easy to not take Brit-rock quartet Supergrass seriously on their fourth album, Life on Other Planets: Scattered throughout the rest of the disc are chirping birds, bleating sheep, Munchkin choirs, fumbled tambourines and an Elvis imitator. As a matter of fact, American listeners have succeeded in not taking Supergrass seriously since they debuted eight years ago -- or, even worse, haven't paid any attention at all. Underestimate them at your peril. Supergrass are among the best of a long line of U.K. eccentrics -- stretching from the Kinks to Robyn Hitchcock to the Beta Band -- who make rock music giddy enough to entice the easily bored and preoccupy headphone obsessives for hours. In the glory days of the mid-Nineties Brit-pop explosion, these youths from Oxford first brought their pumped-up, punked-out take on that tradition of eccentricity with a hyper debut single, "Caught by the Fuzz."

On Life on Other Planets, Supergrass are still chasing the promise of that 1994 fire-starter, and this time they nearly fulfill it. The quartet's appeal lies in its ability to sound rambunctious and just a little ramshackle without stinting on craft. The songs rarely seem overly meticulous or fussy -- even though they were almost definitely meticulously fussed over. And Life on Other Planets lasts only forty-one minutes, the dozen songs packed to bursting with the tension of too many ideas and too little time. Supergrass combine a taste for Seventies rock (glam, Paul McCartney, Electric Light Orchestra) with the punk holy trinity of speed, noise and more speed. On "Za," they bang a gong as if they were channeling the late glam imp Marc Bolan, and then rev up from a swagger to a sprint on "Rush Hour Soul." The album's first great moment hits during the song's coda, an extended drone disrupted by a guitar riff dressed in T. Rex drag. The album's sequencing is one of its central strengths: Just as things start to sag nine songs in, the wavy guitars and jabbering piano of "Grace" arrive, along with a shout-from-the-rooftops chorus. "Run" provides an excellent exit strategy -- it's an extended piece of dream-pop with undulating waves of keyboards and blissed-out harmonies that fade to silence, only to return -- an endless loop of burbling synthesizers that echoes the album's opening seconds.

Life doesn't quite add up to a classic: "Prophet 15" couldn't be more derivative of Paul McCartney's "Let 'Em In" if it applied for a Wings fan-club membership, and the wooden ska of "Brecon Beacons" and the faux hillbilly swing of "Evening of the Day" suggest a band trying on uniforms that don't quite fit. "Never Done Nothing Like That Before" compresses pummeling piano and overtaxed guitars into 103 giddy seconds in which Supergrass sound as if they're talking to themselves in the mirror: "You don't know what you're talking about." Supergrass' lack of commitment can get wearisome, and Life suffers without a guiding sense of personality, a point of view. Though Coombes and his bandmates can write instantly catchy pop songs, they could use a little bit of the vision evinced by more celebrated Brit contemporaries such as Blur's Damon Albarn, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker or Radiohead's Thom Yorke. Indeed, one senses that Coombes abhors such figurehead status, since he spends much of Life singing about his lack of ambition. On "Can't Get Up," Supergrass come closer to revealing what makes them tick: "I'm just living a story/Like I heard it on a 45." Next time, if they can get out from under their imposing record collections, Supergrass could make the ambitious and completely realized power-pop masterpiece that has always appeared to be their destiny. It seems closer now: If they pull it off, Life on Other Planets will have been the stepping stone. (GREG KOT)

50 Cent Get Rich or Die Tryin' (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope)

By now, 50 Cent's coronation as the new king of hardcore hip-hop is all but assured. Check his credentials: Years before the 8 Mile soundtrack introduced him to the world, 50 Cent established himself as one of the underground's best MCs, turning out dozens of bootlegs and mix tapes full of hilarious disses and first-rate freestyles. He was touted as "the illest motherfucker in the world" by none other than Eminem, who signed 50 Cent to his label for a reported $1 million. His songs have been all over MTV and the radio, and even casual pop fans are aware of the most arresting part of his biography -- namely that this former hustler, crack dealer and inmate has taken more bullets than most platinum-selling rappers have hits.

If this combination of big-name backers, undeniable skills, radio-ready tracks and a marketable thug persona make Get Rich or Die Tryin' a sure-shot smash hit, it also makes it a great record. 50 and his cadre of producers didn't set out to reinvent gangsta rap, but they succeeded in exploiting both its brawniness and its imperturbable cool, not to mention its clichés. Dre, Eminem and a handful of lesser-known producers are at the top of their game here, concocting these alternately club-ready and spaced-out tracks out of dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce. Both "Wanksta," one of Jam Master Jay's last productions, and the Dre-produced "In Da Club" have already torn up the pop charts, and it's easy to see why: Both sport a spare yet irresistible synth hook augmented by a tongue-twisting refrain; both sound anthemic even though they don't shout their messages. Elsewhere the hooks are equally slick and powerful: the half-sung, half-shouted chants of "Life's on the Line," the slick steel drums on "P.I.M.P." Wandering stoned through this engaging sonic landscape, pulling off rounds like he's just cooking breakfast, drawling and balling, 50 complements the production with an unflappable, laid-back flow, the basic tenor of which he sums up in "Like My Style": "I'm a New Yorker, but I sound Southern." When Eminem pops up with two excellent cameos on "Patiently Waiting" and "Don't Push Me," you kind of wish 50 could be as brassy and definitive. But his real strength lies in making thugism sound effortless, and much of the time his rhythmic slurring glides along so easily you wonder if he's just freestyling.

Lyrically, nothing on Get Rich or Die Tryin' is as clever or funny as "How to Rob," a mix-tape classic from 1999 that explained how 50 planned to jack nearly every big-time rapper alive. Instead, 50 mostly traffics in line after line of foreboding thug-speak, as on "Heat": "I do what I gotta do/I don't care if I get caught/The DA can play this motherfuckin' tape in court/Bitch, you slipping? I'm-a kill you." This cold-bloodedness goes hand in hand with a sense of gangsta gravitas, whether he's asking his listeners to pray for him ("Don't Push Me") or claiming he's going through hell ("Gotta Make It to Heaven"). Given his history of violence, the sense of impending doom on "Many Men (Wish Death)" rings clearer than it would coming out of the mouth of any other rapper, save maybe Biggie and Tupac. Part of the reason he seems so credible, so really real, is because you actually believe 50's life may be in danger. So what if the video for "In Da Club" -- which features Eminem and Dre as puppet masters in lab coats, observing 50 through a one-way mirror -- suggests that 50's producers are clinically exploiting his real-life dramas? Get Rich or Die Tryin' is so full of life, it makes you hope the only bullets 50 will need to fire from now on are metaphorical. (CHRISTIAN HOARD)

Massive Attack 100th Window (Virgin)

With 1991's Blue Lines, the collective known as Massive Attack virtually invented the kind of who-does-what? knob-twirling aggregation of sound makers, singers and programmers that makes finding producer's credits so difficult and makes "electronica," whatever that is, look so deceptively easy. In an era when other pop-electronic bands seem to settle for matching breathy female vocals with a click track, Massive Attack always deliver an exhilarating rampage of complex, menacing grooves. The group's sense of proportion is finer than those of its peers -- rather than create soundscapes for soundscapes' sake, it demands that its atmospheres evoke real moods, real emotions, real engagement. The predominant flavor of 100th Window is Asian, making for a lyrical, relaxed mood, but the vocals address the listener with creepy directness, telling "you" again and again what you're up to. Gonglike bells herald the swirly, layered pop of "Special Cases"; actual funk threatens but never achieves release on "Butterfly Caught." "Future Proof" sounds like a tabla from outer space, as sinuous Middle Eastern noises shimmy against the thump of a drum program. On "Everywhen," a voice of indeterminate sex sings things such as "You think you know." The closer, "Antistar," draws South Asian threads together for a flowing, nervously beautiful, danceable collage. 100th Window includes a couple of drifty dullards -- unforgivable for artists who usually set the bar so high -- notably "Small Time Shot Away," which doodles and deedles like the wait-area music for an amusement park's space-coaster. Massive Attack fans won't be startled by anything on 100th Window, but at nine tracks, this may be the most accessible, freaky, futuristic electronic head-food album on the market. (ARION BERGER)

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Nocturama (Anti)

On his twelfth album with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave offers more of the gloomy torch songs and demon-exorcising mojo that have made him Australia's ranking goth poet. Sometimes Cave sounds like Leonard Cohen with a better band and a richer voice, as on the trio of pretty, slow-burning ballads that kick off the album. But Cave really gets into high gear on "Dead Man in My Bed" and the fifteen-minute closer, "Babe, I'm on Fire," both garage-rock rave-ups as only Cave could spin them. With organ, drums and violin working up a maelstrom, Cave conjures the spirit of a lost lover and howls like a possessed bluesman about a "blind referee" and an "unlucky amputee." It's the kind of spleen-drenched murkiness that inspires cults, for sure, but most people this pretentious or literary don't rock so hard or write tunes so good. (CHRISTIAN HOARD)

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Hearts of Oak (Lookout!)

Ted Leo became an underground rock mainstay in the Nineties, with his Washington, D.C., mod-punk trio Chisel, especially after the 1995 album 8 A.M. All Day. Today the New Jersey native is one of indie rock's most idealistic singer-songwriters, chronicling war, race and U.S. foreign policy with his crack band of Pharmacists, who flavor their drums, bass and organ music with violin and melodica. Leo's quavery voice and power-chord guitar recall the Jam's Paul Weller, whether he's giving his lover a tender pep talk in "The Crane Takes Flight" or getting nostalgic about ska in his catchiest song, the Specials tribute "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?" Leo's racial politics are serious and confused in that familiar white-guy-in-D.C. way, but word-heavy, wound-up gems such as "Hearts of Oak," "The Anointed One" and "The Ballad of the Sin Eater" prove he knows how to turn political conviction into punk energy. (ROB SHEFFIELD)

Paul Van Dyk Global (Mute)

Since emerging on the global dance scene in the late Eighties, Paul Van Dyk has consistently been ranked among the top DJs in dance circles. Global, a combination CD/DVD retrospective of Van Dyk's career, shows how he earned his place as a superstar of the trance/progressive genre. Kicking off with Jessica Brown's warm vocals on "We Are Alive," the disc moves seamlessly through some of his biggest hits, including the techno drone of "Words" and "Together We Will Conquer," an epic track that weaves together an ethereal intro, large synthesizers and infectious house grooves. Van Dyks's segues are so effortless it's easy to take them for granted, but the precision with which he moves between styles and tempos is a thing of beauty. (STEVE BALTIN)

Tim Easton Break Your Mother's Heart (New West)

You can take the boy out of the Midwest, but you can't take the Midwest out of the boy -- Tim Easton is proof of that. The native Ohioan (and former member of Columbus' Haynes Boys) busked his way around the world for years, but his melodic folk rock is a heartland affair. Break Your Mother's Heart is his third solo album, and it's a beauty, filled with bright guitar jangle, Hammond organ hum and evocative rooftop poetry sung in a softly weary voice etched with Easton's travels. His backing band, including drum legend Jim Keltner, bassist Hutch Hutchinson (Bonnie Raitt) and keyboardist Jai Winding (Jackson Browne), plus cameos by guitar aces Mike Cambell and Greg Leisz, add a subtle Left Coast, Seventies sensibility. Not that Easton needs much help in the stringed instrument department; his mandolin on "The Man That You Need" recalls early Rod Stewart albums, and his guitar picking reveals a range of influences from Dickey Betts to Doc Watson. The clincher, however, is the ebullient "Poor, Poor L.A.," Easton's parting kiss to the city he's called home for the last couple of years; it should do for him what "New York, New York" did for Ryan Adams. (MEREDITH OCHS)

The Bad Plus These Are the Vistas (Columbia)

Who hasn't heard enough of "Smells Like Teen Spirit?" Well, how 'bout a version where the drummer swings like a drunken grave digger while the pianist plays the familiar melody with all the glee of Liberace on an all-night bender of sex and sweets? Power piano trio the Bad Plus does this and more, reworking classic rock with devilish humor, musical invention and overwhelming energy. BP's methods are free-jazz friendly, filtered through the mire of Radiohead, Charles Mingus and a circus freak show. At times graceful ("Everywhere You Turn"), other times bombastic and savage ("Keep the . . . Bears Off Your Ass"), the Bad Plus explode jazz (and rock) tradition, displaying a special lunacy and wildly inventive improvisation in both covers and original material. Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and Aphex Twin's "Flim" also come under TBP's bloody knife, but their own material is more exciting. If "bad" still means "good," the Bad Plus are absolutely miserable. (KEN MICALLEF)

Brooks Williams Nectar (Signature Sounds)

A journeyman on the coffeehouse acoustic scene for more than a decade, Brooks Williams is probably best known for his deft, tasteful guitar chops. But he's also a literate singer-songwriter with a comforting voice that can recall James Taylor and Eric Clapton. Williams is inching closer to pop territory, subtly mixing electric guitar into much of this lush, melodic CD, including a sunny opening take on Aztec Camera's "Birth of the True." He focuses on his acoustic for "May You Never," though Nashville roots-rock producer Phil Madeira adds lap steel both to that John Martyn tune and Memphis Slim's "Mother Earth." Williams' own bluesy touch -- on National steel guitar in "Yellow Hummingbird" and twelve-string octave slide in "Mother Earth" -- proves more engaging than the dull bloom of his folky love song "Unexpected Rose." Despite his reputation as a guitarist, however, this is a concise outing that strives for pleasant songcraft, not soloing. (PAUL ROBICHEAU)

Eamonn Vitt Deserted Music (Self-Starter Foundation)

In a move that's the definition of indie, Eamonn Vitt split from Boston's jazz rockers Karate six years ago to become a doctor. But he didn't entirely abandon scales for scrubs. On his full-length solo debut, Deserted Music, the bassist/guitarist trades Karate's slacker cocktail jazz and slowcore for a mostly acoustic thirty-minute song cycle about chasing the ghosts of relationships past, sung in his whispery, laid-back tenor. The emo country jangle of "Painted" and the banjo-pickin' "Followed" give way to "Left at Gallup," which conjures the spirit of "old Cortez the Killer" with a stab at Neil Young-style electric fuzztone stomp. Even when he's drinking the blues away on the wistful acoustic duet "Mixed Drinks" ("Keep mixing drinks, it helps you think/Keep mixing messages, it's all the same"), Vitt -- joined by honey-voiced Mascott singer Kendall Meade -- has an eye on the "distant semi-tone" echo of his heart. (GIL KAUFMAN)

Atom and His Package Attention! Blah Blah Blah (Hopeless Records)

Philly-born MC and master programmer Adam Goren spits lyrics like a Viagra-popping auctioneer and has some advice for the confounded masses: Stop smoking, be more concerned about your grandma's well-being, and keep your uneducated opinions to yourself. On his fifth outing, he and Package, his loyal synthesizer, deliver a rambunctious, guitar-heavy album infused with pure punk spirit. The usual silly banter about things that unhinge his otherwise cool demeanor is countered with a harder heavy metal sound and even a foray into electronica with the keyboard-heavy "Head With Arms." Old Atom meets new with the addition of crunching guitars, crashing cymbals and aggressive vocals on songs like the unapologetic "I, Professional Gambler" and the fired-up, anti-blockhead anthem "The Palestinians Are Not the Same Thing as the Rebel Alliance, Jackass." But as "Does Anyone Else in This Room Want to Marry His or Her Grandmother?" proves, there's still plenty of sweet Atom to go with the sour. (KERRY SMITH)

Further Seems Forever How to Start a Fire (Tooth and Nail)

After losing its frontman, Chris Carraba, to greener pastures (otherwise known as the wildly popular band Dashboard Confessional) emocore fivesome Further Seems Forever not only made another album, but one that rocks with the potential power to make Carraba wish he'd never left. How to Start a Fire burns with incendiary power-pop guitar riffs and smolders with intensely emotive vocals. Jason Gleason, Carraba's replacement as both singer and songwriter, brings both a harder edge and a softer underbelly to the band's sound with vocals and melodies that dangle at both ends of the spectrum. On the wistful ballad "On Legendary," Gleason croons with honeyed introspection, while he peppers the tortured "Against My Better Judgement" with aggressive wails and anguished screams. The rest of the album follows suit, alternating between angry songs of self-abnegation and quiet, melodious songs of transcendence. "I am redemption," Gleason sings with moving believability on the almost hymn-like "I Am." Chris who? (KRISTIN ROTH)

(February 10, 2003)